Bryan Welch

Bryan Welch is the Chief Executive Officer of Mindful Society Media, publisher of Mindful Magazine, and CEO at the Foundation for a Mindful Society. He is a veteran media executive, writer, rancher and entrepreneur with unique expertise in businesses that improve the world. He’s the former CEO of Ogden Publications (Mother Earth News, Utne Reader), B The Change Media (B Magazine), and Foster Care Technologies.

Bryan has served on the boards of the Magazine Publishers Association, the Social Venture Network, Bioneers and several other nonprofits. He also has served on corporate boards of directors and advisory boards of companies involved in natural foods, ecommerce and the media. He was Niche Media’s 2014 “Niche Rock Star of the Year” is a member of Mequoda Group’s Digital Media Hall of Fame and was honored with the B Corporations’ 2014 Hal Taussig lifetime-achievement award for “using business as a force for good.”

He holds a master’s degree from Harvard University where he studied media policy and media management at the Kennedy School of Government and Harvard Business School.

Bryan’s award-winning book, Beautiful & Abundant: Building the World We Want, appeared in 2011. 

He and his wife, Carolyn, raise organic, grass-fed cattle, sheep and goats on their farm near Lawrence, Kansas. 

3 words to describe Nature?

Infinite. Spacious. Energetic

3 things Nature taught you?

That I am very small

That I am part of something infinitely large

That there are beauty and abundance everywhere, and beauty is important.

3 most treasured Nature spots?

Any place where I am sufficiently aware. X3!

When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel…?

Filled with a vast energy

When you see a forest, it makes you feel…?

Contemplative. Alert.

When you see a volcano, it makes you feel…?

Stimulated

When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel…?

Present

When you hear thunder, it makes you feel…?

Filled with awe

When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel…?

Filled with awe

Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?

All of those!! See answers above about my favorite spots.

On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?

10

Share with us a childhood nature memory?

Following my herd of dairy goats, watching them eat all manner of desert things - mesquite beans, bunchgrass, creosote sprouts - then bringing them in at the end of the day for milking.